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User blog:Aodhagain/Diary of a Seal Clubber Hunter
All of the recent questions about tiers and seal clubbing have made me curious about how much of a problem seal clubbing actually is in bronze tier these days. And so, I have decided to dust off my old bronze tier hangar and go seal clubber hunting. Tally-ho! The Plan: This weekend I will drop down to bronze tier on iOS. I'll be taking screenshots of the results of any battles where I encounter an obvious seal clubber, and documenting my impressions of their overall abilities and how the battle went. I haven't decided if I'll show their names or not. I've created this blog to keep track of my findings. For the sake of anonymity, and to avoid giving myself away to any clubbers that frequent this wiki, I shall be changing my name back to Pilot. It's an expensive experiment since it will cost me gold to change it back again, but I think it's worth it. Depending on my findings this weekend, the following weekend I will be starting over with a fresh account on my old iPad to get some idea of what it would be like as a new player. My Clubber Hunting Hangar: Level 2 Vityaz with Thunder & 2x Pinatas Level 2 Patton with 4x CRV Pins Level 2 Patton with 4x Pinatas Level 2 Stalker with 2x Magnums (replaced Boa, used for beacon running) Level 2 Gepard with 3x Magnums (for use only if someone really annoys me) Seal Clubber Hall of Shame This is a list of seal clubbers that I enountered during my experiments. All used advanced robots such as the Rogatka, Carnage, Gepard, etc. sargus bane - Lives in bronze, apparently. I remember him from my time in bronze back before I even joined the wiki. Very predictable playing style, seems to use the same bot order and tactics, and bails when things don't go his way. One of the few seal clubbers I've encountered that actually uses corners properly though. Dangerous to noobs. Blumpkin - Another long-time seal clubber. Very aggressive and impatient player. Kill him a couple of times quickly enough and he always leaves the battle. Cc - Seemed reasonably skilled for bronze tier, but no real terrain awareness or knowledge of how to use cover properly. Only saw him in two games so far. Meh. Warmtrooper - This guy has also been in bronze forever, and it shows. Full hangar, relies on WP weapons pretty heavily. Jumps around without much awareness of his surroundings. Easily ambushed. The best player - This must be an ironic name, cause this guy sucked. Too much reliance on Thunders, doesn't seem to know how to handle mid-range combat. Stumbles around like a drunk elephant. Engage at >400m. Dany - Used a full Plasma Griffin in bronze tier. LOL. What a tool. I completely smoked him with my Gepard that was already down to 30% health. Fire from the corners and he'll go down easy. Savage - Has a Rhino but doesn't seem to know how to use it. Got 0 kills in our game. Victor:)mess you up - Didn't get to see him fight cause he left the game after I ambushed him twice in a row. Neza - Not very skilled but potentially dangerous due to having lots of Magnums and Tarans on all of his bots. Spams them constantly, so you can always hear and see him coming. SauLitRo - Don't remember much about this guy except he had at least one Taranasaurus, and he scored pretty highly even though he had the most deaths on the red team by far. I'd assume he is very aggressive based on that. Punchbugg - I've seen this guy in a few games so far. He always leads with a Taranasaurus, then a Pinata Gepard, then a Magnum Stalker. Not a very good aim, he wastes a lot of shots. Guessing he lives in bronze cause he doesn't have the skill for higher tiers. PRO - Very meh. Hugo Boss - This one's a maybe. I don't recall what he was using. Nimrod - Was on my team so didn't get a chance to see how he did. Warhammer - Also meh. Uses a Rogatka with Tarans, Gepard with Magnums, Carnage with Thunders, and a Patton with Spirals. Day 01 - Bored now. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all... I've played 10 games so far, and 9 of them had at least 2 obvious seal clubbers in each game, aside from myself. In one game there was one on my team, and three on the red team, so out of 12 players, 5 were seal clubbers (including myself). Each had at least 4 slots, judging from their having 3 deaths and still being in the battle when it ended. Lots of Stalkers, a few Gepards, lots of Taran Rogatkas, and a couple of Boas with Taran and Thunders. These seem to be the most popular combos. Only 1 Carnage so far, equipped with a Zeus and a Treb. Weird combo. He was on my team so I wasn't able to judge how effective it was. The thing that has really stood out to me so far is that none of the clubbers I've encountered seemed very good. Also pretty frequently they will leave the battle after getting spanked a couple of times. They were overconfident and would charge out into the fight, seemingly relying on their superior bots and weapons rather than skill or tactics. There's no real use of cover, or corner firing, and you could kite them around like they were a dumb AI. It's kind of hard to explain if you haven't experienced it, but players in high tiers have a different way of moving. It's more fluid and unpredictable, and they rarely stand still. I've grown accustomed to having to lead my targets a bit more because of it, but in bronze the clubbers will just stop moving to shoot. The whole feel of the battle is... strange. Overall I would say it's fun to run around in fast bots again, but it lacks the impact of playing with heavies. It all feels so predictable and repetitive. There's no real strategy or teamwork, it's more like you're just reacting to everything without thinking about it. I'd equate it to the difference between watching amateurs play chess compared to grand masters. It's almost like they're playing a different game. I don't know if I can do this for a whole weekend. Day 02 - The Early Hunter Gets the Seal Clubber. Or maybe not... Played 5 games this morning. So far I've only seen one seal clubber. It's a much more relaxed game right now. Less lag and fewer dropped connections. Seems logical to assume that most people, including seal clubbers, will be playing later in the day. Spent the whole morning in a Patton with CRV Pins, slow but fun. I still got max gold in 3/5 games, and 8 in the other two. Rogatkas are serious overkill in bronze. Killed one, but it had Punisher Ts, so possibly not a seal clubber. Lots more seal clubbers in the evening, including a couple with clan tags. Day 03 - Sunday is Funday When You're Hunting Seal Clubbers A bit more action in the morning than yesterday. Saw a couple of clubbers from previous days, and lots of other players with WP and Au weapons. I've really only been paying attention to the folks with Rogatkas, Carnages, that sort of thing, but there are a lot more people using maxed Boas with Thunder and Tarans, and Cossacks with Tarans. Far more competition for the beacons too. It's certainly a much rougher experience than when I first went through bronze tier as a noob. I can see why there are so many complaints in the reviews these days. If you didn't know what was going on it would almost certainly feel like the game was pay-to-win to an unfair degree. Kicking it up a gear: I was bored in bronze, so I decided to try a comparison of bronze and silver tiers while using basically a bronze hangar. The only thing I changed was swapping in a level 9 CRV Pin onto a Patton, which put the bot over the bronze limit for weapons. I played 10 games in each tier, and recorded the results. Bronze - 9 Wins, 1 Loss 6 games I received 10 gold, 2 games I got 8. In 1 game I got 5 gold after spending most of the match hunting down two seal clubbers on the red team. I had to spend a lot of time capping beacons due to the high number of light bots on both teams that were constantly running around. Silver - 10 Wins 9 games I received 10 gold, 1 game I got 8. Even though the silver games were full of low level heavies, I was able to dodge them pretty effectively using my Stalker. The Patton with Spirals was pretty much worthless due to its poor damage, so I swapped it out for the Boa with Thunder/Orkan that I'd originally planned to use. I was surprised to get 10 gold so frequently, as it felt like I spent a lot more time in close combat and less time running after beacons. My guess is that there are fewer gold farmers, and more people just looking for a fight. There are also a lot more campers, so games can take longer. Granted I may have more experience than the average player, but I was also using an extremely underpowered hangar. So I think it's reasonable to argue that it's really not necessary to farm gold in bronze tier. Silver tier offers a much better mix of what the game has to offer anyway, and ironically it is frequently easier due to the lack of seal clubbers. Category:Blog posts